Situational Theory of Publics - History- Foundation

History- Foundation

The situational theory of publics originated in James E. Grunig's journalism monograph titled “The Role of Information in Economic Decision Making” in 1966. That was the first step in the development of a theory that today is known as the situational theory of publics. That monograph introduced the first variable in the theory, problem recognition, as an explanation of why people sometimes engage in genuine decision-making and sometimes engage in habitual behavioral.

In his doctoral dissertation on the economic decision making processes of large landowners in Colombia, Grunig developed the second variable of the theory, constraint recognition. Together, problem recognition and constraint recognition explained when and why people actively seek information. Later, Grunig added Herbert Krugman's concept of level of involvement to the theory to explain the difference between active communication behavior (information seeking) and passive communication behavior (information processing).

In his 1984 textbook, Managing Public Relations, and in a number of studies published before and after the textbook, Grunig further developed the theory from an explanation of individual communication behavior to a theory of publics-based in part on John Dewey's book, The Public and Its Problems.